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The latest major update to Dota 2 from Valve has landed, bringing with it the removal of OpenGL support and the new hero Muerta.

Valve mentioned multiple times in the past their plans to continue the modernization of the tech behind Dota 2, and so this update is the one to do it. On Linux, it's now Vulkan only requiring at least AMD GCN+, NVIDIA Kepler+, or Intel HD 5000-series. They plan to go further, with a future update planned to upgrade their SIMD to SSE4.1 that will "allow higher performance in physics, particles, and general gameplay code" which shouldn't really affect many people, as they said nearly all "processors released in the past 10 years support SSE4.1".

The new hero, Muerta, is described as: "With her fearsome trickshots, summoned spirits, and a sidearm to spare, Muerta's knack for taking lives was so impressive, Death himself put her on the payroll. A twin-pistoled engine of dead-eyed vengeance, Muerta shepherds wayward souls to the other side, whether they want to get there or not. And if they need more convincing, she’s ready to reveal her true form as a murderous spectral nightmare if it helps them die a little faster."

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Muerta's abilities include:

  • Dead Shot - Muerta fires a ghostly bankshot at an enemy unit or tree. When the bullet strikes, it damages and briefly slows, then ricochets in the targeted direction. The ricochet damages all units that it passes through, stopping when it hits a hero. Heroes hit by the ricochet will run in the direction of the shot.
  • The Calling - Summons a group of revenants that slowly circle the targeted location. Enemies within the area are slowed and have reduced attack speed. Revenants deal damage and silence enemies as they pass through them.
  • Gunslinger - Muerta's attacks have a chance to fire a second shot at another target, prioritizing Heroes.
  • Pierce the Veil - Muerta transforms, becoming immune to physical damage. All of her attack damage is dealt as magical damage. Muerta gains bonus attack damage and phased movement. Muerta can attack ethereal units, but deals no damage to Magic Immune targets.

This update also comes with a new mini-game that runs until April 4th: "Muerta needs help getting the right warm bodies in the right fresh graves... and that’s where you come in! You’ll get an assigned target before every Dota game during the Dead Reckoning event. Score points for Kills and Assists. But watch out — your opponent’s out for your blood too, and whoever scores more gets twice the reward!".

Additionally Dota 2 version 7.33 is coming in April, which they've been working on "for a while" that they sound will be quite "ambitious". Will be interesting to see what they've been cooking up…it's not just Counter-Strike having all the fun huh?

See the full update page for all the info.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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15 comments
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jordicoma Mar 7, 2023
It's sad to lose opengl version.
I don't think that dota needs anything that cannot be done with opengl.
I'm sure this will remove many players. Just last year I change my gf660 for a newer one because it's losing suport for the newer drivers, and seems that it's the minimum for this newer version.
The graphics cards are to expensive nowadays.


Last edited by jordicoma on 7 March 2023 at 12:33 pm UTC
I suppose the legacy openGL version will be available in a beta branch.
Solitary Mar 7, 2023
Quoting: jordicomaThe graphics cards are to expensive nowadays.

The powerful ones might be, but there is plenty of cheaper options (e.g. integrated GPUs) that are good enough to play newer games. I mean Steam Deck is better than your old gtx660.
mrdeathjr Mar 7, 2023
Quoting: Solitary
Quoting: jordicomaThe graphics cards are to expensive nowadays.

The powerful ones might be, but there is plenty of cheaper options (e.g. integrated GPUs) that are good enough to play newer games. I mean Steam Deck is better than your old gtx660.

However according gpu database gtx 660 non ti still have more hardware

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce-gtx-660.c895

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/steam-deck-gpu.c3897

Shaders: 960 on gtx 660 vs 512 on steam deck

Tmus: 80 on gtx 660 vs 32 on steam deck

Rops: 24 on gtx 660 vs 16 on steam deck

Gpu Clock: 1032mhz on gtx 660 vs 1600mhz on steam deck

Memory Bandwidth: 144gb/s on gtx 660 vs 88gb/s on steam deck

FP32: 1.98 Tflops on gtx 660 vs 1.63Tflops steam deck

Pixel Rate: 20.6 Gpixels on gtx 660 vs 25.6 Gpixels on steam deck

Texture Rate: 82.5 Gtexels on gtx 660 vs 51.20 Gtexels on steam deck

Personally seems a bit more strong gtx 660 but no is a big difference

However kepler cards must be begins runs better with nouveau still with practically nothing help from nvidia compared intel or amd opensource efforts
DamonLinuxPL Mar 7, 2023
Two problems:
In Dota OpenGL gives me much better performance than Vulkan and no graphics issues and no lags on Radeon GPU.
Thats why I was using OpenGL until now. Now I checked Vulkan again and I faced the same problems. The game is not playable on Vulkan.

They have a number of open and unfixed Vulkan issues in the bugtrack on github. They should fix them before removing OpenGL, unfortunately they chose a different path, I don't understand it at all.

The second problem is old chips that don't support Vulkan and were still playable on OpenGL. We have AMD's HD5000/6000 series and some 7000 series. We have quite a few NVIDIA cards that were still able to handle Dota in OpenGL. Sam has an old card at home and I played Dote on it in the evenings when we came back to the weekend or some holidays to the family home. Now this GPU will no longer run Dota on Linux, and interestingly, by installing Windows on it, we'll be able to continue playing on this GPU with DX11 and it's smooth. Once again, Linux people has been treated worse than Windows.


Last edited by DamonLinuxPL on 7 March 2023 at 4:20 pm UTC
Lofty Mar 7, 2023
Quoting: DamonLinuxPLinterestingly, by installing Windows on it, we'll be able to continue playing on this GPU with DX11 and it's smooth. Once again, Linux people has been treated worse than Windows.

So can you run it in proton with DXVK then ? Thus emulating DX11.
Leopard Mar 7, 2023
Quoting: DamonLinuxPLTwo problems:
In Dota OpenGL gives me much better performance than Vulkan and no graphics issues and no lags on Radeon GPU.
Thats why I was using OpenGL until now. Now I checked Vulkan again and I faced the same problems. The game is not playable on Vulkan.

They have a number of open and unfixed Vulkan issues in the bugtrack on github. They should fix them before removing OpenGL, unfortunately they chose a different path, I don't understand it at all.

The second problem is old chips that don't support Vulkan and were still playable on OpenGL. We have AMD's HD5000/6000 series and some 7000 series. We have quite a few NVIDIA cards that were still able to handle Dota in OpenGL. Sam has an old card at home and I played Dote on it in the evenings when we came back to the weekend or some holidays to the family home. Now this GPU will no longer run Dota on Linux, and interestingly, by installing Windows on it, we'll be able to continue playing on this GPU with DX11 and it's smooth. Once again, Linux people has been treated worse than Windows.


https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/wiki/For-AMD-users-having-issues-with-non-OpenGL-games

Do this.

Amdgpu kernel driver is required for being able to use Vulkan on those old gpu's, which is the default kernel driver on RX 4xx and newer gpu's.

It is not default on those older gpu's because it disables VGA output.
DamonLinuxPL Mar 8, 2023
Quoting: Lofty
Quoting: DamonLinuxPLinterestingly, by installing Windows on it, we'll be able to continue playing on this GPU with DX11 and it's smooth. Once again, Linux people has been treated worse than Windows.

So can you run it in proton with DXVK then ? Thus emulating DX11.

No, I mean is possible to dual boot with Windows and run game nativly on Windows because that old graphics card are still supported on windows dota2.

DXVK can't work here because one - Valve anticheat not support proton, and second to use dxvk my old need to support vulkan.
DamonLinuxPL Mar 8, 2023
Quoting: Leopard
Quoting: DamonLinuxPLTwo problems:
In Dota OpenGL gives me much better performance than Vulkan and no graphics issues and no lags on Radeon GPU.
Thats why I was using OpenGL until now. Now I checked Vulkan again and I faced the same problems. The game is not playable on Vulkan.

They have a number of open and unfixed Vulkan issues in the bugtrack on github. They should fix them before removing OpenGL, unfortunately they chose a different path, I don't understand it at all.

The second problem is old chips that don't support Vulkan and were still playable on OpenGL. We have AMD's HD5000/6000 series and some 7000 series. We have quite a few NVIDIA cards that were still able to handle Dota in OpenGL. Sam has an old card at home and I played Dote on it in the evenings when we came back to the weekend or some holidays to the family home. Now this GPU will no longer run Dota on Linux, and interestingly, by installing Windows on it, we'll be able to continue playing on this GPU with DX11 and it's smooth. Once again, Linux people has been treated worse than Windows.


https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/wiki/For-AMD-users-having-issues-with-non-OpenGL-games

Do this.

Amdgpu kernel driver is required for being able to use Vulkan on those old gpu's, which is the default kernel driver on RX 4xx and newer gpu's.

It is not default on those older gpu's because it disables VGA output.

Nah, that won't work. My old GPU not support amdgpu nor vulkan. This is pre-gcn, so not possible.

Guess, I need to stay with my current gpu and forged about this old one in my family home but again vulkan dota implementation is unplayable here on RX580.
Lofty Mar 9, 2023
Quoting: DamonLinuxPLGuess, I need to stay with my current gpu and forged about this old one in my family home but again vulkan dota implementation is unplayable here on RX580.

am i reading this correctly that an RX580 is not fully Vulkan compliant or is this just a specific DOTA issue ? Isn't this just a driver update that could be easily patched, because afaik the RX580 is still a solid card for gaming even in 2023.

Please tell me that the Polaris generation is still supported under FOSS MESA drivers. This card has a relative performance of a current gen (at the time of writing) RX6500XT. If not, it kind of reduces the impact of the long term support idea of AMDGPU being FOSS, because my binary Blob Nvidia GTX760 from 2013 can play DOTA using Vulkan afaik..
maybe it's just one game now but that also implies that it's all source engine 2 games which would also be soon exclusively using vulkan too.


Last edited by Lofty on 9 March 2023 at 6:58 pm UTC
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